


Happy Birthday, Friendo!

by taylor_tut



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Fever, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Illnesses, Sick Character, Sickfic, Whump, sick hawkeye pierce
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-19
Updated: 2019-03-19
Packaged: 2019-11-25 21:20:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18171599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taylor_tut/pseuds/taylor_tut
Summary: A birthday fic for a friend on tumblr! She wanted Hawkeye being sick and overworked and BJ looking out for him.





	Happy Birthday, Friendo!

As soon as Padre pulled up to the camp, Margaret could tell that something was wrong. He didn’t look angry or upset—he never looked angry or upset—but he also wasn’t as cheerful as he’d normally be after a morning volunteering at the orphanages, particularly since he’d had help today.

Or so Margaret had thought. Given the exhausted manner in which Hawkeye dragged himself out of the vehicle, she ascertained that he may not have been very much help at all. Her theory was validated when she beelined for Father Mulcahey and asked him how the day had gone.

“It was fine, don’t get me wrong,” he began hesitantly, looking around and dropping his voice to ensure that no one but Margaret could hear. “We just didn’t get as much done as I’d hoped we would.”

Margaret frowned. “Really?” she asked. 

“We were supposed to help them move in all the new beds for the children, but we only got about halfway through.”

“Isn’t that what Hawkeye was supposed to be helping with?” she accused. When she allowed herself a secretive glance, she noticed that he was sure carrying himself like he’d been lugging heavy furniture around all morning, his posture slumped and tired. He’d forewent conversing with Margaret and Padre in favor of grabbing a cup of coffee from the table, something else that was odd. As much as Hawkeye loved coffee, he loved talking even more. 

“Yes, and he did,” Father Mulcahey reassured. “It was just… slower going than I’d expected, I’ll say.”

Margaret couldn’t help but roll her eyes. “You mean he played games the whole time,” she filled in the blanks. Knowing Hawkeye, he was probably too busy flirting with the orphanage women to get any real work done. Father Mulcahey shook his head adamantly, though. 

“No, no,” he denied, “he worked very hard. He stopped a few times to take aspirin, so I’m worried he may have hurt his back. That’s why I wanted to speak to you. I know he’s helping you unpack the shipment today, but I don’t want him to injure himself.” 

“It’s more likely a hangover than an injury,” she pointed out, hoping that Padre would nod and sighing when he didn’t. He always wanted to assume the best in people, even when those people were Hawkeye Pierce. 

“I’m not sure,” he admitted, “but he does seem to be in pain. Just… if you wouldn’t mind, please keep an eye on him.” 

Margaret smiled reassuringly. “For you,” she agreed, “I will.” 

 

Margaret thought herself a patient woman, despite what the boys might believe. She could tolerate a lot of tomfoolery and mistakes, so long as someone’s life wasn’t at stake, even if she didn’t like to act like it. If she had no patience, after all, this place and its people would have already driven her insane. 

That said, she could feel Hawkeye pushing her every button, and not in the ways he normally did. She expected flirtatiousness and dumb jokes, but right now, he was infuriating her in an entirely unexpected way: inefficiency. With every box that he lugged from the back of the van to the storage room, he seemed to move slower, and if Padre hadn’t given her a heads up earlier, she’d have probably already said something to him. However, as it stood, she was beginning to think that maybe he’d been on to something when he’d said that Hawkeye might have hurt his back because she’d never seen him both move so slowly and complain so little, as if he were trying not to draw attention to himself. It wasn’t until he dropped the third box of the day that she finally snapped.

“Hawkeye!” she scolded, stomping over and swiping the box away from him before he could pick it up. “What’s the matter with you today?”

He shrugged. “I have a feeling you’re going to tell me,” he replied, and she ignored him as if he hadn’t spoken. 

“You’re being careless,” she continued. “If you’re not going to take this seriously, you can go.”

Hawkeye had the nerve to roll his eyes. “I’ll be careful,” he said, a strange note of docility to his demeanor that threw her off. However, since he turned back to the task at hand, she decided to let it slide. 

After another hour of unpacking, which had been slow going because even though he’d stayed true to his promise and had clearly tried to be more careful, Hawkeye had still managed to fumble a few more boxes and had taken twice as long as he normally would walking to and from the storage room; the boxes were finally fully unpacked and put away. It hadn’t escaped Margaret’s notice that Hawkeye now looked shaky and pale rather than just tired, and she was beginning to feel a little bad about her earlier assumption that he was hungover. Obviously, he was exhausted, maybe even under the weather, and she cursed herself for not being able to see that earlier, both as a nurse and as his friend. However, that didn’t stop the fire of irritation from boiling her blood when he dropped yet another box not half an hour later. 

“Hawkeye,” she began, taking a deep breath to keep from snapping, “why don’t you just go back to bed? You’re clearly exhausted, and it’s not as if you’re really doing much here.” 

He bristled at that, but shook his head instead of arguing. “I’ve got to relieve BJ in post-op,” he said. 

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” she asked. “You don’t seem like you’re feeling well.” Hawkeye shrugged, one hand coming up to rub the back of his sore neck. 

“Well, Beej has been on duty all night,” he said. “I’m sure he’s eager to get some rest.”

“Perhaps Charles could—”

“Charles wouldn’t take a shift from us if we were on fire,” he cut her off, a touch of his usual mirth to his tone that set her at ease a bit. She knew Charles well enough to know that wasn't quite true, but she also understood where he was coming from in that he'd need a much better excuse than a headache and some sore muscles to get out of post-op duty. 

“You're sure you're not coming down with something?” He side-stepped her as she tried to reach forward to press a hand to his forehead and shook his head. 

“Never better,” he claimed, a lie so blatant that she rolled her eyes.

“You know, not everything has to be a joke,” she pointed out. “You're allowed to feel rotten and say so, or to need a day off.”

Hawkeye looked more tired than she'd ever seen him, more tired than she'd seen anyone in the whole unit look before. His cheeks were red from either exertion or the beginnings of a fever, but she knew he wasn't going to let her figure out which it was.

“We all need a break,” was the closest that he seemed to want to come to opening up. “That's why I've got to go make sure BJ gets his.” 

She chewed her bottom lip as she watched him walk away, promising herself she'd check in on him later before forcing herself to focus back on her work.

 

Hawkeye was half an hour early to relieve BJ in post-op and honestly, he couldn't have picked a better day for that. 

“Am I glad to see you,” BJ greeted, already standing to take off his white coat. Hawkeye frowned at him.

“You look beat,” he noted, and BJ laughed.

“That's an understatement,” he admitted. “I had to open the kid I operated on  yesterday twice, then he needed blood, but we didn't have enough of his type.” 

“So what did you do?”

BJ replied simply by rolling up his sleeve to show the adhesive holding the gauze on the crook of his arm. That wasn't uncommon, but it was never ideal. 

“He’s okay?” That was all that mattered. 

“For now,” BJ replied. “Might have to ask you for some blood later.”

Hawkeye shook his head. “I’m not so sure that’s going to be possible,” he admitted. “Shouldn’t donate with a viral infection.” 

BJ frowned; stopped his active pursuit toward the door.

“You’re sick?” he asked, edging closer to Hawkeye with intent to make him sit down. 

“Barely,” he brushed off, but BJ was smarter than that. 

“You’ve been gone since well before I got up,” he reminded him. “Have you been working that whole time? You look awfully pale.” Hawkeye shrugged.

“I volunteered to help Padre and Margaret,” he admitted, “but I’m fine.”

“If you’re not up to it, I can take another—”

“You’re not up to it, either,” Hawkeye cut him off before he could even finish the offer. For all BJ’s fretting, he didn’t exactly look like he’d had an easy day, either, and Hawkeye wasn’t about to make him sit through another round of post-op duty, at least not without a meal and a nap. 

“Are you running a fever?” BJ asked, the end-all-be-all question for fitness for duty. Hawkeye hadn’t taken his temperature that day and he was relatively sure that he was running warm if the chills that were beginning to run through his body were anything to go by, but he shook his head, anyway. 

“It’s just a cold, at worst,” he reassured. BJ crossed his arms, torn between trusting his friend and being suspicious of his self-preservation skills. 

“Well, if you start to feel worse, come get me,” he insisted. “I’ll be taking a nap, but you can wake me up if you need a break.” Hawkeye nodded, shuffling BJ out of the room impatiently. 

“I will,” he promised. “Go get some rest. Replenish some blood in case we need it.” BJ smiled and exited with a mock salute. 

“Will do, Captain,” he said, seemingly put at ease by Hawkeye’s breezy attitude, at least for now. It wasn’t until BJ had fully exited the room and closed the door that he finally let himself sag with the weight of exhaustion as he sat heavily in a chair. The dull ache that had plagued his muscles all day now pulsated rather that alleviated once he sat down, almost making him wish that he’d taken BJ up on his offer of a quick nap before his shift. However, he nipped those thoughts in the bud as he felt them pop up—he was only in here for eight hours before Charles would come to take over and allow him to sleep. He could last that long, he reassured himself.

 

It wasn’t Charles who next entered the room. Hawkeye was a little upset with himself for falling asleep in a chair watching over post-op, but since there were several nurses still floating about and ensuring that no one died, he assumed that everything was okay. He knew that he’d been awake on and off for the past few hours, as he had memories of being shaken every hour or so to make rounds and adjust medications as needed, but for the most part, he remembered very little, but he wasn’t sure whether he’d spent the better part of it conscious or fully asleep was anyone’s guess. 

“Told you I’d bounce right back,” BJ gloated, taking a seat in a chair next to the one in which Hawkeye had been dozing. It didn’t surprise him that BJ had come to check in before Charle’s shift, but he hadn’t expected to feel so exhausted by the time that he did. Had it really only been six hours? It felt like half a day.

“Feelin’ better?” Hawkeye asked, hoping that the slurring of his words would be written off and feeling relieved when BJ nodded. 

“Yes, after a meal and some sleep,” he returned. He glanced suspiciously at Hawkeye, taking in his pale complexion and the slight tremble that still shook his bones despite that the room was comfortably warm. “How are you doing?”

He shrugged. “Okay,” he lied. He could barely keep his eyes open to even speak, and though that was something that he himself was willing to write off as exhaustion, BJ seemed more concerned. 

“You don’t look so good.” Hawkeye shrugged, drawing into himself and tugging his coat tighter around him. 

“Just tired,” he said. “And freezing.” 

“Yeah?” BJ asked, his eyebrows knitting together in concern. “Look at me.” Hawkeye did his best to comply, but with everything spinning around him, it was hard to definitively tell when his eyes finally rested on his friend. When his vision finally focused, BJ’s face was concerned and one hand was reaching out too fast for him to flinch away from. 

“Jesus, Hawk,” he muttered, ushering a nurse over to his side. “Can I get a thermometer? He’s really burning up.”

“I just need some sleep in the Swamp,” Hawkeye argued, but BJ shook his head. 

“You needed sleep this morning,” he maintained. “Now, you need drugs.” The lack of quippy response was enough to convince BJ that he was making the right decision in hoisting Hawkeye out of his chair and into a bed. At the very least, he needed fluids, possibly even antibiotics. 

Honestly, as much as he didn’t want to admit it, putting up a fight against BJ’s hands as he coaxed him up out of his chair and toward a bed seemed like more effort than it was worth. A bed and some antibiotics sounded pretty good right about now, and really, no one was going to be too surprised that this was how today was ending for him. 

He wavered as he stood, but BJ was right there to steady him. 

“Alright?” he verified, only moving forward when Hawkeye nodded exhaustedly. “Well, you’re not, really, but you’re gonna be fine.” Hawkeye was barely awake for long enough to register BJ putting the needle in his arm for the IV, but he trusted him to take care of everything even if he was technically still on duty. BJ was always good at making sure that everything was okay in the end. 


End file.
